Do not take her. She makes you

talk no matter where you sit.

     I greeted you at the door, another mother’s

     child delivered. You looked away as if a lamb

     had been slain. Your early sounds parsed, seeds

     seeking ground—then whole thoughts crowned.

Ridiculous grader. She actually reads

your work instead of the deserved A.

     So hard to put a score on this—this wrestling with

     your age. Rubrics hold out such promise—then fold,

     fade. Instead of systems: a new thought, like a starling

     transporting a golden bough, was what we praised.

I didn’t come here to read ancient epics, poems, plays.

Remind me again how this gets an engineer employed?

     Leaving Troy, Odysseus had one thing—Ithaca—in mind.

     The gods gave him their scales: slay the proud boy in you

     and die a king regaled. A cyclops, sirens, a bard spared among

     suitors to sing your tale. All of them pleading: Set sail. Set sail.